Net Neutrality - A Basic for Netizens in a Free Society (eCommerce)

Net Neutrality - A Basic for Netizens in a Free Society (eCommerce)

Seminar

Topics

Net Neutrality - A Basic for Netizens in a Free Society (eCommerce)

Date

22nd February 2018, Thursday

Time

05:30 PM~07:30 PM

Venue

Windy Town

Speakers

1 persons

The common concern is that if a platform provider also becomes the provider of functionally specialized services, will other providers delivering services over the same network get fair access to the vital underling infrastructure? Within the context of telecom, this concern is basically termed as net neutrality. To ensure net neutrality, all electronic communications passing through mobile networks are treated equally – in the context of an environment where traffic management, in varying forms and degrees, is ubiquitous. There is a fine line between correctly applying traffic management to ensure a high quality of service and wrongly interfering with data traffic to limit applications that affects the operators’ own lines of business. By allowing MNOs in e-Commerce, the door of anti-competitive strategy such as throttling rivals’ e-Commerce services will be opened up-- exercised through measures such as non-uniform access time and security features. There could be the argument of using regulation to address such issues, but due to information asymmetry, it is likely that policy of minimizing conflict of interest will be far more effective than monitoring unauthorized behaviors and taking punitive actions.